This is a place where I admit things.
Age 14, I had heard of Meat Loaf but didn’t really know the words to a lot of his songs and could maybe only name four or five. This was still two years before he would burst back onto the pop culture main stage with Bat Out Of Hell II and the epic song that was everywhere.
I found myself in a position with a Columbia House contract to fulfill. Eight cassettes for a penny had been an amazing deal, but now I had to buy six more at full price, so I needed to choose wisely.
I knew Bat Out Of Hell was a huge album and I remembered liking what I had heard, especially “Pair Of Dice By The Dashboard Light”.
I had never heard a song with a baseball play by play in it before and the sexual metaphor was absolutely not lost on me, but I still thought it was completely plausible for the song to be called “Pair Of Dice By The Dashboard Light” because if you’re making out in the front seat of a car, this could ostensibly be your view.
This was way before google and the ability to easily find any song, including the lyrics, so all I had to go on was the radio announcer and any casual conversations where the song was mentioned, which were very few. It wasn’t until the cassette came in the mail that I realized what the song was called. I’ve never mentioned this to anyone, ever, I simply just changed my pronunciation moving forward and it was as if I had always known the proper title of the song.
I still have the cassette and holding it this morning brings me right back to those summer nights, lying down on my waterbed, listening to my walkman, marveling at how absolutely epic this album was. I remember feeling that this was the first album I’d heard that told a complete story, the songs connected, though separate. It was because Meat Loaf was 100% in character in every single song and it felt like you were following them all on the same journey of love and rock and roll.
There’s a great article by variety published this past week where Meat Loaf talks about Bat Out Of Hell – worth a read for sure.
And I do not remember the last time I saw this video, but it has been a loooong time.
Thoroughly enjoyable, and hilarious. Especially when he is trying to buy time before confessing anything remotely like forever love.
That same sense of humour kills me in another favourite, “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad”.
Imagine telling a girl, actually saying these words out loud, that you want her and you need her, but you’re never going to love her.
Oh, and that’s okay because two out of three ain’t bad.
If Bat Out Of Hell was catching lightning in a bottle, can we agree that Meat Loaf caught lightning twice?
“I Would Do Anything For Love” came out on Bat Out Of Hell II in 1993. Grunge was everything, Alternative music was blowing up, Rap and Hip-Hop are mainstream, and here you have a seven minute plus rock opera that you could just. not escape.
And with it, another misheard lyric and I’m going to use that whole “I was today years old” bit because it is actually true.
Watching the music video again today, at the 3:50 mark and thanks to the transcription, I was today years old when I realized the lyric is “Maybe I’m lonely, that’s all I’m qualified to be.”
My entire life before today I sang: “Maybe I’m lonely, that’s all a pile of fat can be.”
Watch the video and close your eyes and tell me you don’t hear it too.
A legend lost for sure and a unique impact on rock and roll like no-one else I can think of.
What is your favourite Meat Loaf song and why?
Also, I can’t be the only one to have misheard Meat Loaf – are there any other lyrics out there that have confused anyone over the years?
#RIPMeatLoaf